Connections

Little things that connect, that send your mind drifting back into the past. Memories weaving here and there some of them as clear as if it were yesterday.

On Wednesday morning we went up to Leek to look around the shops there.  The museum, for some reason was closed but we ventured into the Foxlowe Arts Centre to look at a local art exhibition.  On the same floor was a book case of second hand books for sale, the title of the one below caught my eye and the memories flooded in.

 

It was 1980 and we were staying in Lyme Regis, a place we both love.  Paul had an appointment with the curator of the Philpot Museum to look at and photograph Pterosaur specimens and I was just fascinated with the story of Mary Anning who spent days on the Undercliffe searching for fossils.  We stayed at a small hotel called the Old Monmouth where creaking floor boards and suddenly opening doors led the other people at breakfast to delcare that they were sure that they had heard 'Old Monmouth' during the night.  The owners had a cat called Cleopatra who more often than not visited the bedrooms, luckily we liked cats, as once or twice we found her curled up in the sink in the corner of our room.  I remember the hotel was across the road from the church and the church clock could be heard ringing each hour.

A very fuzzy and discoloured old photo of me outside the Old Monmouth. Below the Philpott museum both taken in 1980.

 

The day of the appointment arrived and we went in to meet the curator who at that time was the eminent writer John Fowles.  He was interested in why we were visiting and what we were interested in and happy for Paul to identify a fossil for him. He referred us to Dorchester Museum to find another fossil there.  A few weeks after we returned home we had a thank you letter from him.  We still have it somewhere, most probably in a file, in a plastic box in the back of the garage.  Perhaps one day we will come across it again.

The book is full of illustrations by an artist called Elaine Franks with a foreward by John Fowles.

John Fowles of course is no longer with us but - here - is an article about Elaine Franks.

At Lyme

I think the day we spent in Lyme Regis was the hottest we'd had all week.  It looked positively Mediterranean  as we sat sipping early  morning coffee on the terrace at the back of  a small store next to the museum.  We were last here about 15 years ago;  our first ever visit was about 30 years ago - our first holiday together almost a year after our wedding.

We had a rather traumatic start to our recent visit!  As we were walking down the hill from the car park an elderly man came running past us down to the road where the path to the town lies against the stream.  He'd left a lady, presumably his wife, in a wheelchair by the entrance to the path and was in a hurry to get back to her.  Unfortunately, in his haste, he didn't notice the step down onto the path and as he pushed the chair forward the poor lady hurtled out of it, onto her face and nearly rolled into the stream.  We rushed to help - Paul managed to move the wheel chair and set it upright whilst I and another passer-by helped the distraught man pick the frail lady up and sit her back in the chair.  She'd grazed her face and hands but otherwise seemed unhurt just shaken.  The local lady gave them directions to a chemist shop.  She stopped for a word or two and when we said we hadn't been there for about 15 years she smiled and said 'It hasn't changed' - she was right!

Well,  actually some things had changed - there was an extension to the museum with a new entrance and shop but inside the main building it seemed unchanged.  We spent ages wandering around, Paul looking at the geology displays and me absorbed in the displays about Mary Anning, Jane Austen and John Fowles.

The town was just as I remembered it!  The first time we visited the town looked different because it had been artificially 'aged' with old shop and inn signs, with plastic cobbles down the main street and half a huge sailing ship near the Cobb - filming of John Fowles's novel 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' had just been completed and some of the film-set alterations were still in place.

The little bow windowed houses along the front looked smarter than they used to.

The beach, harbour and harbour wall known as The Cobb still looked as wonderful as I remembered them.

We walked along the Cobb right to the end -  up on the wall for a while but then came down the stone steps to the lower walkway.

When we first visited we stayed in a small hotel called The Old Monmouth and we found it,  still opposite the church but no longer a hotel - just a private house.

Over the road, in the churchyard, we found the grave of Mary Anning, whom I wrote about in this post, and her brother Joseph.

In the church we found the window dedicated to Mary Anning paid for by members of the Geological Society in 1850, three years after her death.

Of course, we visited lots of the fossil shops as well!  I loved the shop bottom left, it had Alice's homemade bears and bear kits (as seen on Kirstie's Homemade Christmas) at street level and fossils below. 

Above, a few more scenes at Lyme - next Charmouth, Bridport and West Bay.

Shaftsbury

I'm heading away from the coast for a while to take you to Shaftesbury.  We stayed in a lovely 'eco house' BandB near here.  It was a fairly new timber framed house in the small village of Ludwell.  Only a short walk away was a lovely village pub where we had a gorgeous evening meal.  Paul had the chef's Fish Pie and I had goat's cheese, almond and sun-blushed tomato risotto both were very tasty and left no room for a pudding.

We were certainly ready for food as we'd expended a lot of energy here

walking down

and then back up

Gold Hill - famous for the 1973 Hovis advert, of course!  The volunteer warden of the church at the top told us that everyone he spoke to after they'd visited Gold Hill always thought that it was in Yorkshire!

A thatched cottage at the bottom of the hill

 

Sun and Moon Cottage at the top was a priest's house

There were lovely views over Blackmore Vale from the Abbey gardens.

We'll be back to the coast for the next post at one of my very favourite places - Lyme Regis!

She Sells Sea Shells

Ever since I first visited Lyme Regis in 1980 I've been fascinated by both its literary and geological connections. I must admit I initially wanted to visit because of Jane Austen's Persuasion and was enchanted to find the little bow windowed houses and the wonderful harbour wall known as the Cobb from which Louisa Musgrave fell in Austen's story. A visit to the local museum however opened up another fascination for me in the life and work of the well known fossil collector and dealer Mary Anning.

Whilst on that first visit I bought the little book and postcards in the photo above and have kept them all this time. Of course, over the years, I've read in other books about the life of Mary Anning - books like Deborah Cadbury's The Dinosaur Hunters.


Mary's life was a harsh one! She and her brother Joseph were the only surviving children of the 10 born to Richard and Mary Anning. As an infant she was struck by lightening- an accident that changed her completely. Her family weren't well off, her father was a cabinet maker and fossil enthusiast; Mary followed in his footsteps and from early in her childhood was able to spot and collect fossils from the beaches in and around Lyme. Her father died when she was still young and Mary took over as the main hunter of fossils whilst her family sold the fossils from their house in Cockmoile Square. Mary collected things like ammonites, Belemnites and sea urchins to clean and sell.


She came to the attention of many of the scientists and collectors of the day including The Reverend William Buckland, Henry de la Beche and the Reverend William Conybeare. As she scoured the beaches of Black Venn and the Undercliffe with her faithful dog, Tray she found some of the most startling and interesting fossils. As well as finding the remains of creatures now known as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs - at first thought to be ancient crocodiles and turtles - she also discovered the first complete pterodactyl, or pterosaur as they are now called, in the UK.

Imagine then my delight to find a new novel written by Tracy Chevalier about the life of Mary Anning. This book covers Mary's young life and her friendship with the Philpot sisters and in particular Elizabeth Philpot who was herself a collector of fossil fish. The Philpots had moved from London to Lyme about 1805 (missing Jane Austen, who visited in 1804, by a year) and were soon drawn into the social life of the town. The Philpot Museum in Lyme was built in 1901 on the site of Mary Anning's first home by Thomas Philpot the sisters' great nephew as a memorial to their life and work in Lyme.


Tracy Chevalier's 'Remarkable Creatures' brought Mary to life for me. It is written in the first person a chapter each in the words of Mary and Elizabeth covering the same events in time from differing viewpoints. She has captured society's restrictions on both Mary Anning and the Philpot sisters so well. Mary, of a lower class to the Philpots, was disapproved of by their servant Bessie. The genteel sisters - non of whom would marry - the cards and dancing at the assembly rooms, the interest in botany, art and drawing and collecting fossils; the making of salves and lotions to distribute for presents. It was Mary who worked so much in what was then considered a man's world - roaming the beaches of Lyme, hacking out fossils, cleaning them in the family basement and dealing with the gentlemen collectors and dealers as well as the geologists and scientists with whom she became acquainted over the years.

Mary's work was finally acknowledged when, just a few years before her death in 1847 she was granted a modest annuity raised by members of The Geological Society and others even though women were not admitted as members at the time. Mary left Lyme only once in her life to visit London. She is buried in the churchyard at St Michael and All Saints, Lyme where there is also a window dedicated to her and her work, paid for by the Geological Society.

It is said that the 'tongue-twister' whose first line is 'She sells sea shells on the sea shore' was inspired by the life of Mary Anning - hence the title of this post.

Wikipedia entry for Mary Anning - link

William Buckland's paper on 'The discovery of a new Species of Pterodactyle in the Lias at Lyme Regis' - link

The Philpot Museum's website - link

Waterstone's Review of Remarkable Creatures - link